Upload
others
View
5
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Citation:Fletcher, T and Dashper, K (2013) ’Bring on the dancing horses!’: Ambivalence and class obsessionwithin British media reports of the dressage at London 2012. Sociological Research Online, 18 (2).DOI: https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.3040
Link to Leeds Beckett Repository record:http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/193/
Document Version:Article
The aim of the Leeds Beckett Repository is to provide open access to our research, as required byfunder policies and permitted by publishers and copyright law.
The Leeds Beckett repository holds a wide range of publications, each of which has beenchecked for copyright and the relevant embargo period has been applied by the Research Servicesteam.
We operate on a standard take-down policy. If you are the author or publisher of an outputand you would like it removed from the repository, please contact us and we will investigate on acase-by-case basis.
Each thesis in the repository has been cleared where necessary by the author for third partycopyright. If you would like a thesis to be removed from the repository or believe there is an issuewith copyright, please contact us on [email protected] and we will investigate on acase-by-case basis.
1
Dr Thomas Fletcher and Dr Katherine Dashper, Leeds Metropolitan University
‘Bring on the Dancing Horses!’: Ambivalence and class obsession within British media
reports of the dressage at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
To be published in Sociological Research Online.
Due to historical relationships with the military, royalty, landed gentry and upper-class society, equestrian sport faces regular accusations of being elitist and exclusionary. Through qualitative textual analysis of British press reporting of dressage events at the London 2012 Olympic Games we argue that despite British dominance of the sport, these historical associations with the upper classes, privilege and elitism were foregrounded in many media reports; trivialising and at times mocking dressage. We identify three key themes related to the ways in which media reports framed dressage and its participants in heavily class-laden terms. Faced with their ignorance of the sport, the majority of articles analysed resorted to class-based stereotypes that trivialised, satirised and devalued this seemingly elitist and incomprehensible sport. The success of Team GB in dressage meant that media reports were never wholly critical and elements of the hysteria and pride surrounding the Games led to a highly ambivalent response to dressage that reflects the “vague, confused, contradictory [and] ignorant” (Cannadine, 1998: x) attitudes to social class that characterise British society at the current time.
Key words: Dressage, Equestrian, Media, Olympic, Social Class
Introduction
Throughout the summer of 2012 Britain seemed to experience an unusual sense of unity and
national pride. From ‘Super Saturday’ to ‘The Mobot’, the British media whipped up a storm
of hysteria as the nation was urged to show their support for Team GB. As the medals
stacked up, the excitement rose to fever pitch, culminating in a triumphant victory parade
through the streets of London on 9 September. Team GB experienced success in a wide
range of sports, from athletics to cycling to women’s boxing, but unprecedented success in
the equestrian sport of dressage prompted an outpouring of media content that revealed
the continued prevalence of another British obsession in addition to sport: that of social
class.
David Cannadine (1998: ix-x) observed that “most British thinking about class is not only
obsessional, but also vague, confused, contradictory, ignorant and lacking any adequate
historical perspective”. All of these aspects can be observed in the British press’ responses to
2
Team GB success in dressage, as we discuss further below. In The Theory of the Leisure Class,
Veblen (2000[1899]) explores the connection between social status and leisure choices. As
has been documented in a number of sports histories, including cricket (Stoddart and
Sandiford, 1998; Williams, 1999) , association football (Mason, 1980) and rugby (both codes)
(Collins, 2009, 2012), modern sports forms represent distinctive sets of values, and in so
doing, provide a vehicle for the expression of social difference and differentiated social class
(Sugden and Tomlinson, 2000: 311). Sports requiring higher levels of monetary and time
investment, including equestrian sports, hunting and shooting, are associated most regularly
with the aristocracy and landowning classes. Polley (1999) suggests that a main part of the
attraction of equine sports for the higher classes has been their traditional image, and the
opportunities afforded by them for conspicuous displays of wealth. Indeed, as Bourdieu
(1978) argued in his analyses of sport, the ways different groups approach and display their
physical culture is an outward marker of class. While the working classes demand ‘outward
signs of strength’ (boxing and rugby for instance), the middle classes emphasise good
manners, health and hygiene.
Equestrian events have been on the summer Olympic programme since 1912, but
participation was limited to military officers only until 1952 (Dashper 2012a). Due to
historical relationships with the military, royalty, landed gentry and upper-class society,
equestrian sport faces regular accusations of being elitist and exclusionary (Riedi 2006).
Despite reports that 4.3 million people in Britain ride (British Horse Industry Confederation,
2009), to many, equestrianism remains the preserve of the upper classes (Polley 1999).
Moreover, although participation in equestrianism is now much more evenly spread across
socio-economic groups and now involves more women than men (British Equestrian Trade
Association, 2006), the history of the sport remains firmly linked to upper-class masculinity
(Dashper 2012b). Although equestrian sport could be considered relatively progressive in
relation to gender representation (it is the only Olympic-level sport in which there is no sex
segregation and men and women compete against each other on equal terms), it retains an
image of tradition and conservatism (Dashper 2012c).
There are three equestrian disciplines represented within the Olympic Games – show
jumping, eventing and dressage. Both show jumping and eventing have a history of British
success and relative popularity, with events like Badminton Horse Trials attracting hundreds
of thousands of spectators each year and horses such as Olympic show jumper Foxhunter
3
winning affection from television audiences (Crawford, 2007; This is Gloucestershire, 2009).
In contrast, dressage was slower to gain popularity in Britain and a dedicated organising
body – British Dressage – was not set up until 1998. The sport of dressage developed as a
means of training cavalry horses for performance both in battle and on parade. Over the
course of the twentieth century dressage developed as a sporting endeavour, with increased
complexity, subtlety and difficulty characterising competitions. The international organising
body for equestrian sport, the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), states that
“Dressage is considered the art of equestrian sport and is used as the groundwork for all
other disciplines. It is the highest expression of horse training” (FEI, n.d.). Modern dressage
is, as Bryant (2008: 192) suggests, something of a paradox, situated somewhere between
athletic pursuit and art, and it is this ambiguous position that may confuse non-specialist
observers and that may have contributed to the relative lack of public attention previously
given to dressage by the British media, in comparison to the more easily understood formats
of show jumping and eventing. In this article we have chosen to concentrate on British press
representations of dressage alone, to the exclusion of the other equestrian disciplines
included in the Olympic Games, because British success in dressage at the 2012 Olympic
Games marked the first occasion when the national media gave this paradoxical, marginal
sport sustained attention.
We argue that despite British dominance of dressage during the 2012 Olympic Games (Team
GB won team gold, individual gold and individual bronze), these historical associations with
the upper classes, privilege and elitism were foregrounded in many media reports on British
success within this sport, trivialising and at times mocking dressage. At a time when the
British government - led largely by ex-public schoolboys and Oxbridge graduates - are
imposing deep cuts to public services and welfare, and stories of widespread tax avoidance
by wealthy individuals and corporations are dominating the news, this relatively unknown
and certainly poorly understood sport in which large, expensive horses perform intricate and
highly specialised movements, under the serene control of a rider dressed in an archaic
outfit of top hat and tails, offered an easy target for media pundits. However, the
undeniable success of Team GB in dressage meant that media reports were never wholly
critical and elements of the hysteria and pride mentioned above led to a highly ambivalent
response to dressage that reflects the “vague, confused, contradictory [and] ignorant”
(Cannadine, 1998: x) attitudes to social class that characterise British society at the current
time.
4
Methodology
Previous analyses of media coverage of sport have revealed the prevalence of discourses
related to nation (Poulton and Maguire, 2012), gender (Jones, 2011), race (Eagleman, 2011),
sexuality (Wright and Clarke, 1999) and class (Rhodes, 2011). Journalistic and editorial
decisions about the content, focus and style of media sports reporting often reflects deep-
rooted inequalities and reinforces negative stereotypes of marginal and under-represented
groups (Gee and Leberman, 2011). Media analyses of coverage of sports events thus
remains an important tool in exploring social attitudes, both within and beyond sport.
Data for this paper were collected via a media search using the newspaper database
LexisNexis. One of us undertook an extensive review of all UK newspaper coverage of
equestrian events at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The search period was set between
July 1 and October 1, 2012. Whilst we accept the limitations of such a narrow search period,
this timeframe did allow us to examine coverage in the lead up to, during and after the
Games. The search was limited to all UK publications. These included both print and online
sources, traditional broadsheets and tabloids, and other more ‘local’ publications.
Publications searched included The Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, The Express,
The Daily Mail and The Times. Search terms were informed by our casual following of
equestrian events at the time and included: ‘equestrian’, ‘dressage’, ‘dancing horses’, ‘horse
ballet’, ‘Olympic’, ‘London’, and ‘class’. In total, over 2,300 citations (excluding duplicates)
were retrieved. Each article was then read and qualitatively coded according to the
frequency of particular themes, and the resonance of the narrative with themes identified in
the literature reviewed. Our analysis was textual and did not include semiotic analysis of
images and photographs. We appreciate that focusing solely on the ‘text’ is problematic in
that images and photographs were also highly significant in the way the sport of dressage
was framed throughout the research period. However, we felt that integrating semiotic
analysis was beyond the scope of this Rapid Response paper. We would also like to stress
that only articles focusing on the sport of dressage were analysed. Whilst dressage is a
component of eventing for instance, we limited our focus to ‘pure’ dressage, as explained
above. We identified three key themes from the textual analysis related to the ways in
which media reports framed dressage and its participants in heavily class-laden terms, and
how this led to trivialising and devaluing this seemingly elitist and incomprehensible sport.
5
An elitist sport
The dominant theme throughout the media content analysed was the framing of dressage as
an elitist sport and the preserve of the rich and privileged. Some publications used such
framing to disparage dressage as ridiculous and irrelevant, such as the ironic article by Kelly
on MailOnline (3 August) that featured the comment “Anyone can participate in dressage,
just as long as they have a top hat, tails, white gloves and a £1million horse that can do
ballet”. Other articles were more positive about the appeal and value of dressage, but still
presented this support within a class framework, such as Brigg’s headline in The Daily
Telegraph (11 August) “Forget class, hard work was behind dressage success”. This story
went on to praise the members of the British team who had worked hard to train their own
horses (for example, Charlotte Dujardin who, as a teenager, began her career as a stable
hand at a team mate’s (Carl Hester) yard), examples of riders who “buck(s) the stereotype” –
presumably a stereotype which associates wealth and privilege (and, by association here,
many dressage riders) with an unwillingness to get stuck in with hard (‘manual’?) work.
Social class continues to structure many elements of life, including education (Bolvier 2011),
health (Elo 2009) and choice of leisure activities (Bourdieu 1988; Veblen 2000[1899]). This is
by no means a distinctly British phenomenon. However, Britain is one of the most unequal
countries in the western world and the British as a nation are often perceived to be
particularly ‘class conscious’ (Roberts 2011). The British class system has proven to be
relatively stable over the last 100 years, and Dacin et al. (2010) argue that this is due in part
to continued deference for tradition and factors which are not directly linked to economics,
such as ancestry, title, accent, education and lifestyle. A social pecking order persists and
ideas of the British Establishment – a small, elite group of (mainly) white male members,
bonded through kin, shared educational experiences and friendships – represent social,
political and economic power (Bond 2012). This pecking order is rarely overtly challenged
and there is widespread acceptance of different class positions – working class, middle class,
upper class - even if there is incoherence in how and to whom these terms are applied
(Payne and Grew 2005; Savage, 2007). This was reflected in media representations of
dressage at the 2012 Olympic Games.
6
A key feature of media interest was the social backgrounds of the riders in Team GB, and
indeed their diversity provided justification for class-based discussion and speculation.
Several articles contemplated the differences between individual gold medallist Charlotte
Dujardin, a working class girl who had worked her way up from the stableyard, and
individual bronze medallist Laura Bechtolsheimer, “the grandchild of a German billionaire”
(Faulkner, MailOnline, 7 August). This is a newsworthy element of the small dressage team’s
success, yet it is the way that Dujardin’s educational background at a comprehensive school
was contrasted with Bechtolsheimer’s public school education that reveals much of the
ambivalence and confusion within the media’s framing of the social class of the dressage
riders.
Dujardin was frequently praised for her rise from “Stable girl to queen of the dressage ring”
(McArthur, The Times 10 August), and she was presented as the embodiment of working
class diligence and neo-liberal ideals of social mobility. In comparison, Bechtolsheimer’s
expensive education was reported as evidence of continued elitism within the sport
(MailOnline, 7 August), and she was not personally linked with hard work in any of the
articles analysed. However, although Bechtolsheimer was more often presented in
ambivalent terms than the more ‘normal’ Dujardin, there was also evidence of a certain level
of admiration for Bechtolsheimer’s privileged background and resulting social capabilities.
Reporting on an interview with the two female riders, Samuel (MailOnline, 10 August) notes
how privately-educated Bechtolsheimer was considerably more eloquent during interviews
in her responses to questions about gender equity within this mixed-sex sport than her
team-mate. He comments:
We know the advantages of attending a school like Stonar, so it is no
surprise that Bechtolsheimer can speak for herself and is independent of
thought, but it contrasted greatly with tongue-tied Dujardin, whose family
were not wealthy and who left school at 16, having bunked off a lot of it.
Asked about her education, she had to check the name of her school with
her mum.
The links between social class, education and confidence in terms of self expression are well
documented (e.g. Dacin et al. 2010), and the above quote indicates a degree of reverence
7
for the social skills and capabilities that result from a private education. In contrast, Samuel
presents the “tongue-tied Dujardin”, with her more modest background and limited
schooling, as relatively stupid, thus reflecting common practices within the British media
that disempower the white working class, through a thinly veiled tone of disgust (Tyler
2008). Although Dujardin is by no means under-privileged, the juxtaposition of her and the
upper-class Bechtolsheimer throughout many of the media reports analysed positions her as
both working class hero and ignorant chav. Press reporting on the two female stars of the
dressage section of Team GB thus reflects highly stereotypical, even caricatured, views of
the British class system.
Knowledge, inclusion and exclusion
The dressage riders were consistently framed in class terms, and the sport of dressage did
not escape such classification either. Sport fan communities, and in particular audiences at
live sport events, tend to have identifiable demographic profiles (Giulianotti, 2002;
Crawford, 2004). Although there are no current audience profiles for spectators at
equestrian events, participants in equestrian sport in Britain (across all levels and disciplines)
are predominantly female and white, with urban and rural dwellers participating in roughly
equal numbers. Participation is spread across wide age and income distributions (BHIC,
2009; Sport England, 2009). According to Crawford (2004), these patterns do not occur by
chance; rather they tend to be shaped by the history and tradition of each sport. Existing
research on sports cultures does suggest that a distinction exists between the types of
sports attended and consumed on the basis of social class (Holt, 1990; Hill and Williams,
1996; Sugden and Tomlinson, 2000; Williams, 1999). Bourdieu (1978) argues that this
distinction exists due to differences in middle and working class communities’ tastes. For
Bourdieu, middle class tastes are often more suited to sports involving the development of
body and skill (for example, the subtleties of dressage), while working class tastes are more
aligned with sports involving higher levels of risk and bodily strength. Hughson et al. (2005:
153) suggest that each class has not only its own ways of thinking, and preferences, but also
their own physical culture and forms of bodily activity. Working class engagement with
sport, for instance, is consistently depicted as ‘drone-like’ and ‘uncritical’ (Sugden and
Tomlinson, 2000: 315). Armytage (The Telegraph, 5 September) emphasised this
‘distinction’:
8
Dressage has never quite been my cappuccino. I have never got the attraction
of riding in pretty patterns round an arena. Naturally, as a racing man, I prefer
the somewhat cruder method of testing the athleticism of a horse by seeing
which is fastest from A to B, preferably with a few obstacles thrown in.
Knowledge of the nuances of the sport operates as a form of cultural capital (Bourdieu,
1978) and distinguishes ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ followers of the sport from the newly
acculturated, and can act as a form of social exclusion. According to Hughson et al. (2005)
the sporting activity is often just the pretext for the rituals of a particular social group. For
Bourdieu, cultural preferences act as both the product and the producer of class. Tastes are
linked to status through the acquisition of cultural capital; the knowledge of what
constitutes appropriate taste. In other words, one’s habitus dictates one’s tastes and
preferences. However, this capital is not necessarily transferrable into different fields.
Accordingly, general enthusiasts of sport are not necessarily able to accrue capital via having
knowledge in one sport and transfer this capital to another. As Spracklen (2007: 26) argues,
“The meaning of capital, of particular artefacts, or structures, or symbols, may be completely
different between two fields”. It was commonly argued in the media reports that the
subtlety of dressage performances (particularly how they are judged/assessed) was
exclusionary; being unfathomable, and therefore, boring, to the unacculturated (read:
working class). As depicted by Squires (The Express, 30 July):
In the shadow of the meridian, time was made to stand still by the only Olympic
event where a slow-motion replay puts the pictures into rewind …The hardcore
horse-lovers … may have appreciated the inertia, but for the casual interloper
dressage remained a locked box of puzzlement strategically placed behind a
high wall of confusion.
Marsden (The Independent, 13 August) reported similarly:
I've learned new terms that are now set for four years of mental cold storage: …
the passage, piaffe and pirouette in the wonderfully baffling dressage. But
knowing what those three Ps mean didn't help me assess equestrian skill; I
watched the event while thinking "Is this a medal winner? I've no idea."
9
Knowledge and participation in the event allows spectators to feel a much greater sense of
belonging. Lack of understanding of something can often lead to hostile responses from
those who feel excluded from the ‘inner-circle’ of specialist knowledge, particularly when
the activity under question is perceived as an upper-class activity that the lower classes do
not understand (Pyke, 1996). Some hostility was evident in several of the articles analysed.
Giles Coran in The Times (10 August) lamented dressage’s inaccessibility to the uninitiated,
and stressed its lack of sporting spectacle:
I have no idea at all what is going on. I applaud it. I am all for it. Lovely-looking
gee-gees. Hats off to the guys and girls in top hats and morning coats … But as a
sporting spectacle, this is truly the least exciting thing I have ever seen.
It should be noted however, that there were frequent attempts from the British media
throughout the London 2012 Olympic Games to introduce audiences to the nuances of each
sport. A number of event ‘guides’ were featured on the television, internet and indeed, in
the written media. This included dressage where a number of newspapers, including The
Telegraph, Daily Mail, Mirror and The Metro, featured beginner’s guides to the sport. The
publication of these guides was no doubt to democratise the sport to those less familiar with
it. However, this was only partly successful. As was probably the case with guides to other
lesser known (and indeed, well known) sports, the quality of descriptive content varied
greatly. For example, The Telegraph’s guide to dressage featured information pertaining to
‘how to play’ (basic overview of the sport), ‘Tactics and Techniques’ (including cartoon-like
illustrations of the competition space and movements) and ‘Facts and Phrases’ (a
breakdown of the meaning of each movement) (The Telegraph, 2012). In contrast, The Mail
managed only to summarise the basic movements and how scores are calculated, though
did not explain what constituted either quality movement or a high score (SportsMail
Reporter June 20, 2012). Similarly, in addition to a useful history and jargon buster, The
Metro included less helpful and class-laded passages, such as “If dressage was a foodstuff it
would be … Caviar. Not a cheap habit to support and not to all tastes, but passionately loved
by its devotees who will spend a fortune on their hobby” (Shea, Jan 27, 2012).
Trivialising
10
So far we have outlined the ways in which the British print media framed dressage and its
participants as an upper-class domain, intriguing to some extent, yet inaccessible and
unavailable to the masses. Leading on from this was the widespread trivialisation of
dressage as a sport and a spectacle. Many questioned whether it was a sport at all, or
merely a quirky, elitist pastime. According to Bourdieu (1992), the habitus of the working
class is characterised by relatively simple tastes, and an associated rejection of things
deemed pretentious and ‘fancy’ (cf. Hughson et al., 2005). For Bourdieu, when faced with
aspects of this upper class habitus, the working class react with either feelings of humiliation
and indifference, or mockery. Indifference and mockery were certainly evident in many of
the articles we analysed. Moss, for example, referred to dressage as the “arcane horse ballet
beloved of aficionados but largely incomprehensible to everyone else” (Guardian Magazine
Supplement, July 21). It was widely argued that, while certain traditions of the sport, such as
styles of dress, were expected and appreciated by followers of the sport, they were rarely
understood by the ‘masses’. For example, Hewett (The Independent, 10 August) stated that
riders were, “dressed in outfits that would guarantee them podium finishes in the Monty
Python Upper Class Twit of the Year contest”. Other articles acknowledged dressage as a
sport, but trivialised and satirised it. McLeman (Daily Mirror, 10 August) for example, led
with the headline, ‘Dances with Hooves’. Continuing this, a reporter from The Sun headlined,
‘Am I the only one bored by the Olympics?’ and reflected, “I like to call it, Strictly Come
Pony. Nobody has ever explained to me why a girl wearing pink sparkly tights on top of a
dancing horse is a circus act but, if she's wearing a top hat and tails, it qualifies as an Olympic
sport” (The Sun 6 August). Similarly, Coran (The Times, 10 August) likened the “dancing
horses” to “having Crufts at the Olympics” and suggested how the inclusion of dancing
bears, elephants and seals at future Olympic Games “might be nice” too.
Such comments, although tongue-in-cheek in tone and not intended to be taken too
seriously, had the cumulative effect of trivialising and further marginalising dressage as an
elite, Olympic sport. By relegating dressage to the status of spectacle as opposed to sport,
any feelings of exclusion and confusion experienced by many of the journalists (and
probably many readers) was recast as trivial and inconsequential as well.
Conclusions
11
There is little doubt that the growth of modern sport was, and in many ways still is,
interwoven with the class dynamics of the time (Sugden and Tomlinson, 2000: 311).
Consequently the attitudes and beliefs embodied in a particular sport express class-based
statuses and values (ibid.). In this short paper we have begun to outline some of the ways in
which British media reports on the success of Team GB in the dressage at the London 2012
Olympic Games are reflective of broader understandings of social class within contemporary
Britain. 2012 marked the first time within Olympic history when Britain has won a medal in
the dressage and so this unprecedented success meant that the mainstream British media
had to acknowledge this somewhat bewildering sport, which had never before been
considered significant or newsworthy. British success was heralded with cautious praise, but
the incomprehensibility of this intricate, unusual and relatively low profile sport (in Britain at
least), led to highly ambivalent responses from journalists. Faced with their lack of
knowledge of the sport, the majority of articles analysed resorted to class-based stereotypes
that devalued dressage and thus absolved the journalists of their duty to understand the
sports on which they report.
The reporting on the dressage was heavily laden with class references, and reflects the
suggestions of Savage et al (2001) and Payne and Grew (2005) that class remains a relevant
concept through which British people understand the society in which they operate, even if
at times the concept of class is poorly defined, confused and muddled. Due to space
restrictions, we have only begun to touch on many of the important issues raised by this
analysis of British media reporting on the dressage events, and we suggest that a deeper
analysis should also consider the intersection(s) of class, gender, sexuality and ‘race’ and
ethnicity to the ambivalence of the articles analysed.
References
Armytage, M. (2012) Paralympics 2012: GB's amazing feats in the dressage have blown away
even one sceptical horse-racing correspondent [online] available from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympic-
sport/9522043/Paralympics-2012-GBs-amazing-feats-in-the-dressage-have-blown-
away-even-one-sceptical-horse-racing-correspondent.html [accessed 10/10/2012].
12
BETA (2006) Survey undertaken by Produce Study Group for British Equestrian Trade
Association.
BHIC (2009) Size and scope of the equine sector. Available from
http://www.bhic.co.uk/downloads/sizescope.pdf [Accessed 11/03/11]. British Horse
Industry Confederation.
Boliver, V. (2011) Expansion, differentiation and the persistence of social class inequalities in
British higher education. Higher Education. 61: 229-242.
Bond, M. (2012) The bases of elite social behaviour: Patterns of club affiliation among
members of the House of Lords. Sociology. 46(4): 613-632.
Boshoff, A. and Faulkner, K. (2012) One is the grandchild of a German billionaire. The other is
a stable girl from Enfield. Yesterday they teamed up to win a historic gold [Online]
available from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185121/Olympics-2012-
dressage-event-Laura-Bechtolsheimer-Charlotte-Dujardin-teamed-win-historic-
gold.html [accessed 30/11/2012].
Bourdieu, P. (1978) Sport and social class. Social Science Information. 17(6): 819-840.
Bourdieu, P. (1988) Program for a sociology of sport. Sociology of Sport Journal. 5, 153-161.
Bourdieu, P. (1992) Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London:
Routledge.
Briggs, S. (2012) Forget class, hard work was behind dressage success [online] available from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/equestrianism/9467886/London-2012-
Olympics-forget-class-hard-work-and-dedication-won-dressage-gold.html [accessed
03/10/2012].
Cannadine, D. (1998) Class in Britain. London: Penguin Books.
13
Collins, T. (2009) A Social History of English Rugby Union. London: Routledge.
Collins, T. (2012) Rugby’s great split: Class, Culture and the Origins of Rugby League Football.
London: Routledge.
Coran, G. (2012) This makes it a bit like having Crufts at the Olympics [online] available from
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/olympics/article3503366.ece.
Crawford, G (2004) Consuming sport: Fans, sport and culture. London: Routledge.
Crawford, S.A.G.M. (2007) Foxhunter and Red Rum as national icons: Significant equestrian
episodes in post-Second World War British sports history. Sport in History. 27(3):
487-504.
Dacin, M.T., Munir, K. and Tracey, P. (2010) Formal dining at Cambridge colleges: Linking
ritual performance and institutional maintenance. Academy of Management
Journal. 53(6): 1393-1418.
Dashper, K. (2012a) The Olympic experience from a distance: The case of the equestrian
events at the 2008 Games. In Shipway, R. and Fyall, A. (eds.) International sports
events: Impacts, experiences and identities. Oxford: Routledge.
Dashper, K. (2012b) ‘Dressage is full of queens!’ Masculinity, sexuality and equestrian sport.
Sociology. DOI: 10.177/0038038512437898.
Dashper, K. (2012c) Together, yet still not equal? Sex integration in equestrian sport. Asia-
Pacific Journal of Health, Sport and Physical Education. 3(3): 213-225.
Eagleman, A.M. (2011) Stereotypes of race and nationality: A qualitative analysis of sport
magazine coverage of MLB players. Journal of Sport Management. 25: 156-168.
Elo, I.T. (2009) Social class differentials in health and mortality: Patterns and explanations in
comparative perspective. Annual Review of Sociology. 35: 553-572.
14
FEI (n.d.) About dressage. [online] available from
http://www.fei.org/disciplines/dressage/about-dressage [Accessed 9/4/13].
Hewitt, C. (2012) A rugby man enjoying dressage? I nearly had to draw the curtains [online]
available from http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/comment/chris-
hewett-a-rugby-man-enjoying-dressage-i-nearly-had-to-draw-the-curtains-
8027184.html [accessed 09/04/2013].
Hill, J. and Williams, J. (eds) (1996) Sport and Identity in the North of England. Keele: Keele
University Press.
Holt, R. (1990) Sport and the British: A modern history. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hughson, J., Inglis, D. and Free, M. (2005) The uses of sport: A critical study. London:
Routledge.
Jones, A. H. (2011) Visual and verbal gender cues in the televised coverage of the 2010
Winter Olympics. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. 6(2):
199-216.
Kelly, D. (2012) Olympic diary: Welcome to the people's sport (As long as the people are
millionaires or holiday with the King of Morocco) [online] available from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2182935/London-Olympics-
2012-Dressage-peoples-sport--Des-Kelly.html [accessed 30/11/2012].
Marsden, R. (2012) It's time to forget about piaffes and pirouettes for another four years
[online] available from
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/rhodri-marsden-its-time-to-
forget-about-piaffes-and--pirouettes-for-another-four-years-8037294.html
[accessed 13/10/2012].
Mason, T. (1980) Association Football and English Society: 1863-1915. Brighton: Harvester
Press.
15
McArthur, J. (2012) Stable girl to queen of the dressage ring - and all at a brisk trot. [online]
available from http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/olympics/article3503614.ece
[accessed 26/10/2012].
McLeman, N. (2012) Dances with hooves: Charlotte and Laura deliver in the dressage. Daily
Mirror, August 10.
Moss, S. (2012) London 2012 Olympics Guide: The hidden gems that can sparkle: Equestrian.
Guardian Magazine Supplement, July 21.
Payne, G. and Grew, C. (2005) Unpacking ‘class ambivalence’: Some conceptual and
methodological issues in accessing class cultures. Sociology. 39(5): 893-910.
Polley, M. (1999) Moving the Goalposts: A history of sport and society since 1945. London:
Routledge.
Poulton, E. and Maguire, J. (2012) ‘Plastic’ or ‘fantastic’ Brits? Identity politics and English
media representations of ‘Team GB’ during London 2012. JOMEC: Journalism, Media
and Cultural Studies. Available at:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/jomecjournal/2_november2012/poulton_nationali
dentity.pdf [Accessed 9/4/13].
Pyke, K.D. (1996) Class-based masculinities: The interdependence of gender, class, and
interpersonal power. Gender and Society. 10(5): 527-549.
Rhodes, J. (2011) Fighting for ‘respectability’: Media representations of the white, ‘working
class’ male boxing ‘hero’. Journal of Sport and Social Issues. 35(4): 350-376.
Riedi, E. (2006) Brains or polo? Equestrian sport, army reform and the 'gentlemanly officer
tradition': 1900-1914. Journal for the Society of Army Historical Research. 84: 236-
253.
16
Roberts, K. (2011) Class in contemporary Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Samuel, M. (2012) Indeed, women do know their place ... on the podium [online] available
from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2186693/London-2012-
Olympics-Womens-place-podium--Martin-Samuel.html [accessed 30/11/2012].
Savage, M. (2007) Changing social class identities in post-war Britain: Perspectives from
Mass-Observation. Sociological Research Online. 12(3): 6. doi:10.5153/sro.1459.
http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/3/6.html.
Sport England (2009) Active People Survey results for equestrian. 16 December. Sport England.
Savage, M., Bagnall, G. and Longhurst, B. (2001) Ordinary, ambivalent and defensive: Class
identities in the northwest of England. Sociology. 35(4): 875-892.
Shea, J. (2012) London 2012 Olympics: Equestrian dressage – a quick guide [online] available
from http://metro.co.uk/2012/01/27/london-2012-olympics-equestrian-dressage-a-
quick-guide-299011/ [accessed 09/04/2013].
Stoddart, B. and Sandiford, K.A.P. (1998) The Imperial Game: Culture, Cricket and Society.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
SportsMail Reporter. (2012) Equestrian: Your guide to the only sport involving animals
[online] available from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-
2121540/London-2012-Olympics-Equestrian-guide.html [accessed 09/04/2013].
Spracklen, K. (2007) “You say potahto, I say potayto”: Bourdieu, egregious economic
metaphors and the meaning and use of social (and cultural) capital in leisure
research. In M. Collins., K. Holmes. and A. Slater (eds) Sport, leisure, culture and
social capital. LSA publication 100. Eastbourne: Leisure Studies Association.
17
Squires, N. (2012) Yes, Zara's certainly the one; Queen's granddaughter keeps up royal
tradition [online] available from http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/336216/Yes-
Zara-s-Phillips-certainly-the-one-for-Olympic-glory [accessed 27/10/2012].
Sugden, J. and Tomlinson, A. (2000) Theorizing sport, social class and status. In J. Coakley
and E. Dunning (eds) Handbook of Sports Studies. Oxford: Sage.
The Sun. (2012) Am I the only one bored by the Olympics? August 6.
The Telegraph. (2012) London 2012 Olympics: equestrian guide [online] available from
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/7904559/London-2012-Olympics-
equestrian-guide.html [accessed 09/04/2013].
This is Gloucestershire (2009) Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials start.
Gloucestershire Echo. 7 May. [Internet] Available at:
http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Mitsubishi-Motors-Badminton-Horse-Trials-
starts/story-11853377-detail/story.html#axzz2PyBc7k5j [Accessed 9/4/13].
Tyler, I. (2008) Chav mum, chav scum. Feminist Media Studies. 8(1): 17-34.
Veblen, T. (2000[1899]) The theory of the leisure class. New Jersey: Transaction.
Williams, J. (1999) Cricket and England: A Cultural and Social History of the Inter-war Years.
London: Frank Cass Publishers.
Wright, J. and Clarke, G. (1999) Sport, the media and the construction of compulsory
heterosexuality: A case study of women’s rugby union. International Review for the
Sociology of Sport. 34(3): 227-243.